Tuning out the State of the Union

By Ed Hoffman

As I write this, it hasn’t happened yet – but by the time you read this, President Obama will have given his final State of the Union address to the nation. Hopefully you watched it and won’t need to be briefed, but if you didn’t watch it, I certainly won’t blame you. Even some of the most informed people I know don’t want to sit through 120 minutes of desperate self-congratulatory rhetoric masked as presidential patriotism.

Even a CNN headline this week said, “Obama goes it alone in his last State of the Union.” They aren’t kidding.

The consensus among the more honest, objective media outlets is that rather than asking Congress for a long list of items he knows he’ll never get – a time-honored State of the Union tradition for all Presidents – Obama will be talking about himself, and only himself this year. He’ll talk about how he bypassed Congress by using his executive authority to expand gun control rules just last week. Obviously he’ll remind us about the Affordable Care Act, even though the law passed six years ago when he was still in his first term. After all, he needs to take as many victory laps as possible lest we forget about his dubious accomplishments.

Additionally, he’ll probably mention his executive action on immigration; you know, the one where millions of illegal immigrants would be allowed to “come out of the shadows” to “get right with the law.” If he does, he’ll definitely include a spanking for the federal courts who have put a wrench in his plans, and the states – most notably, Texas – that have filed lawsuits against his administration over the matter.

You can also expect to hear him spike the ball one more time on his personal accomplishment of having killed Osama Bin Laden, and don’t be surprised if he blames Bush for anything or everything wrong with the country even though we are seven years past the end of Bush’s presidency. Finally, he’ll definitely talk about how he plans to close Guantanamo Bay as one of his final presidential actions, supposedly because it has “outlived its usefulness” and is “too costly to keep open,” as White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on Sunday. Yeah, okay. That’s the reason (*wink*).

In fact, Obama is likely to spank a variety of groups in the State of the Union. No doubt there will be several jabs at Congress, who he blames for stalling his agenda (you know, that Congress we’re always complaining about. They’re not so bad when you look at it that way). There may even be some shots at average Americans, because why not? He has never really attempted to hide his contempt for us, even prior to becoming President. Remember those awful folks who “cling to their guns and religion” – also known as millions of average Americans? They were on his radar before he was ever elected, and yet he pretended to understand them in that awful town hall last week. Now that he’s delivering the final State of the Union, he’s bound to take one last shot at them – so if you consider yourself one of them, no one should blame you for tuning out the State of the Union.

Ed Hoffman is host of The Main Event on AM590, which airs Saturday 9:30 AM- 10:30 AM and Sunday 4:00 PM- 5:00 PM. Follow him on Twitter @EdHoffman, and like him on Facebook by searching The Main Event 590.